Poem A Day Challenge April 11, 2019

In a life time of teaching, there are many students, for all kinds of reasons, who never leave your consciousness. Some of them break your heart. This is especially true if you feel you have failed them. This is a poem for one of the girls I still find myself wondering and worrying about. It might be hard to read for some pf you.

Amanda

I think of you while washing dishes

A ten-year-old girl, already lost

Already missing

We just didn’t know it yet

Brutalized by your psychopathic brother

Rescued from sexual slavery at the age of nine

I met you in May, late in the school year

But kept you for the next one

You were already lost

Trying to keep it together

In a family ripped apart by poverty and

Circumstances beyond its control

Never mind

Not being able to keep on top of laundry

No food was in the house

Attendance was hit and miss

Your confession to a classmate

About your abuse

Turned into a debacle,

Another betrayal by someone

Who claimed to be friend

I held onto you with my whole heart

Held you up the best I could

Celebrated every day you came

Worried then

Worry now,

Twenty odd years later

But you were already lost

Already disappearing

Your grade six and seven teachers

Focused on attendance

I thought you needed more

But you were smart

They saw school as

The route to your salvation

We,

Your mother,

Teachers,

Councillors,

And friends

We let you down

Didn’t save you

Couldn’t save you

Could we?

At 15 you were picked up

For prostitution.

Your probation officer called me,

Wanted someone to

Talk about your character

I wept afterwards

I weep still

Later I discovered you were

Finally, officially, missing

Today I thought of you while doing dishes

I think of you all the time

I wonder if you are still lost

I wonder if you can never be found

I wonder if it’s too late

for you to be saved


Links to previous poems can be seen here